Someone banged against the door. The sound was accompanied by a harsh "Police! Open immediately!"
Before a clear thought could form in Crystal's terrified mind and she could answer, the task force stormed into the studio and guns pointed at her and Mikael.
"Get aside!" one of the officers shouted.
Crystal stared at the intruders in shock. She couldn't have moved, even if she had wanted to. What was going on here? Why did no one help him?! She tried to speak, to explain, but she was grabbed by the shoulders and dragged aside. Now, her spirits awoke, and she struggled.
"What are you doing? He's dying! Don't you—"
"Easy, easy." The officer held her in a tight grip, while one of his colleagues gave an order into his walkie-talkie. A moment later, finally, some paramedics joined them.
...
Detective Hoover abstained from displaying the satisfaction about being right in this case, when he walked into Head Detective Shea's office a day later. They hadn't time to indulge in such 'decencies' anyway. The Hilo precinct was in a state of emergency, and every available officer was on duty. They had to keep out reporters, check evidence, and question witnesses. However, he felt good. Finally, he was able to make a difference again!
"Something for his precious lawyers to chew on," he said and put the folder he had just got from the lab guy onto his boss' desk. "Gant's fingerprints on the girl's clothes; her fingerprints on the knife, and elsewhere in the studio. Traces of a fight. Obviously, she tried to flee but was grabbed again. That's when she snatched the tool and thrust it into his side. So far, every detail confirms her story of self-defense. The psychologist has talked to her, but she's still under shock. And I sent a forensic team to that boat."
"What about Gant?"
"Still in ICU. I talked to his girlfriend, that Crystal Jennings. She said only having moved in with him about a week ago. Pretends not to have seen or known anything. She's just lucky we came in between, I think."
"So you're happy and waiting for a pay raise?" Shea asked.
"I'm happy enough making the area safe for my family," Hoover answered.
...
The police turned upside down Mikael's house. When Crystal was finally sent home - but under strict orders not to leave town - a bunch of reporters awaited her.
"How does it feel to be the lover of a serial killer?" one of them shouted, while another tried to grab her. "Did he threaten you?" She did not know how to evade. She was exhausted and felt stripped and violated when the clicking of the cameras would not stop. "Did you know anything? Did you notice anything strange about him?"
She tried to get the door open but could not, because her view was blurred and her hands were shaky.
Having noticed all the commotion in the neighborhood, Norman showed up. He managed to shoo the reporters not very politely. Then, he tried to assist her further. This was the last thing she could stand right now.
"Leave me alone, Norman!" she cried, finally getting the key into the hole.
"Come over to our house, Crystal!"
"THIS is my house! Don't you get it?!"
"Darling! I'm so glad nothing happened to you! Please… I'm not mad at you…everything will—"
She got the lock open and fled inside, smashing the door behind her. Norman still tried to reason with her. She couldn't handle anything of that sort right now. Hands pressed against her ears she ran upstairs.
But staying there in the room where she had already spent so many wonderful hours with Mikael was torture as well. The more, after the hospital had refused to give her any information about his condition because she wasn't related and a police investigation was going on. At some point, she collapsed, realizing she had not eaten anything for over 24 hours. She could not summon enough strength to prepare anything, though. She curled up in embryo position and cried. They had shown her video footage of murders, asked her if she had seen anything of the sort, if he had mentioned anything. She felt sick even thinking about it. Mikael should have done this? Her charming, gentle, beloved Mikael? No, no no! She curled up yet tighter, wanting this nightmare to end.
…
Sitting in the hospital bed, Mikael blinked and tried to remember what it was he wanted to say only a moment ago. It was hard to concentrate. Probably, it was the effect of the injection they had administered him shortly ago. He felt so tired and dizzy. He blinked again. In front of him sat a middle-aged black man in casual clothing, some papers in front of him, and looking in his direction full of expectation. The memory of the question Mikael had just heard was back. He looked at the photograph of the young woman that was placed in front of him. "Janet. Yes, she was …. At the club … I wanted to… I'm so tired. … I want to go home."
"Do you remember what happened after you have met her?"
"No… Why am I here?"
The door opened, and through his blurred vision, Mikael saw someone entering. "Crystal? … I'm sorry. I'm not feeling well …" The vision dissolved into the figure of a white-clad nurse, checking his infusion.
"Mr. Weber," she addressed the other man, "I'm afraid you have to stop for today."
"Of course. I understand."
Mikael tried to lift his right hand and re-discovered that he was handcuffed to the bed. He remembered something else this man had told him. Or no... it had been a police officer.
"I killed them?" He whispered. "I always… come too late… and she… is on the floor… And there is so much blood… Oh God, I killed them?!" Suddenly, the shock turned into something else, and he laughed.
...
A few minutes later, Weber, a psychologist hired by the Hilo PD, met with Detective Hoover in the hospital's café.
"So, what do you think?" Hoover was impatient. This morning, the forensics had reported in with the evidence from the boat: a camera with raw footage, finger prints belonging to Alexa Finley, pieces of her clothing. He could hardly wait to get that crazy maniac behind bars!
"It's difficult to assess him after only two meetings," his companion answered, slowly sipping his tea.
"He suffers definitely from a dissociative personality disorder, and amnesia, at least. It might have something to do with the night he had found his assistant raping his model. That might have created a guilt trauma he tried to overcome by repeating the initial act of violence."
"I know that case from the papers. - You're sure he's not only a very good actor?" Hoover didn't like it when some sorts of criminals got out of the affair pulling the loony string.
"Trust me; I'm in this job for 20 years. There are certain tests. I'm not done with all of them, but I assure you, I recognize if someone fakes insanity. And this man is not."
…
The fifth day had passed and half of the sixth night since the dreadful events, when Crystal woke up after a sleep of exhaustion in one of the living room's chairs. For a merciful second, everything seemed fine. Then, the reality was back with all its weight. Still, she could not believe that Mikael should've done such horrible things! This must have been a terrible misunderstanding!
After a glance at the watch, Crystal stood up and shuffled to the phone to call the hospital. Once again. Before she had dialed, she reassessed that plan, though, and went upstairs to get dressed. She would go there in person! These damned docs should tell everything to her face!
At the hospital, nothing had changed concerned the restrictions, and no arguments and pleas were of any use. Crystal was close to a nervous breakdown, and the nurse whom she had talked to the last minutes, informed two paramedics to take care of her. That minute, when one of the doors behind the huge glass portal opened, she got to see Mikael after all.
And the sight was worse than any nightmare she had had in the past few days. She looked at the person sitting slumped in the wheelchair, only held upright by a restraint around his chest. She felt sick. Tears started burning in her eyes. She slammed her hands against the separating glass. "Mikael!"
The hand of the nurse sank on her shoulder. "Miss…"
"Let me go in there! Let me talk to him! Please!" Hands pressed against the glass she stared at her lover, whose wheelchair was just rolled into another room, and the door closed behind.
On her way out, Crystal ran into the police officer who had interrogated her a few days earlier – Ray Hoover – and another man accompanying him. She didn't think any further; the words just flooded out of her: "Detective, please, you must hear me out! Mikael can't have committed these crimes! Please, you must help him!"
"Misses Jennings –"
"He is such a kind and sensible person; he would never be able to do such things! He was even afraid I could hurt me in the kitchen cutting the vegetables, or using the sculpting tools in the studio!" She couldn't hold back the tears anymore.
Hoover signaled the hospital's personnel that already had approached to stay back, and put his arm around her shoulder. "Please calm down."
He led her into an adjacent room and closed the door. Then they sat down at a table.
"Misses Jennings, I'm Alan Weber, psychologist," the Detective's dark skinned companion now started to speak with a low, emphatic voice, looking at her. "Mr. Gant is very ill; you have to understand that. I'm sure this is a shock for you – it always is for the relatives of a patient."
"Misses Jennings, do you know the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?" Hoover cut in.
"I don't get what—"
"We don't know yet what makes Mr. Gant 'switch', but when he does, he becomes an extremely dangerous psychotic person. Unlike the man, you may know. And in this state of mind, he has undoubtedly killed several women."
"No!"
"I am very sorry. I know this is hard for you."
Crystal wiped over her face, tried to order her wildly swirling thoughts. "There has to be a way to help him!"
"Right now, Crystal," Detective Hoover said, "our primary goal is to protect the world from him. And this includes you."
...
After arriving home, Crystal wandered aimlessly through the studio, trying to cope with the news. But she could not think. She could not understand! She could see Mikael, hear him, sense him everywhere, inside every piece of art. Lost in her pain, she stumbled against a cupboard and tipped over a container with black paint. The fluid seeped on the ground, where it mixed with metal scrapings left over from the last working session. She looked for something to clean it up but then halted, intrigued by the black metallic shimmer, that made the spots look almost three-dimensional. First with a stick, then a hastily grabbed pencil, and finally, with her hands, she started to spread the paint over one of the large cardboard. She felt as if all her anguish and pain, all her emotions were flowing through her fingers. When she stopped hours later, a dark maelstrom of intertwining swirls covered the cardboard, thick and graspable, with the metal chips reaching out like dead branches from a thorn tree.
Only now Crystal noticed, that her knees, arms, her clothes, and probably her face as well were smeared with the paint. She stood up, feeling shaky and aching. As she turned around, she was face to face with Mikael's latest sculpture, which, even unfinished, stood exactly like the sign he had wanted it to be; a monstrous image of the raped human soul in the darkening surroundings. She leaned against the statue, clasped her fingers around the sharp raw edges without noticing that she cut her flesh and blood dripped down. She felt out of time, stranded in an unreal tormenting blackness. That moment, Crystal realized she loved Mikael unconditionally. And she realized her love meant that she would have to walk through hell itself.
